This invention concerns a new method of treating the syndrome of carbohydrate craving during which patients present an abnormal appetite for carbohydrate at definite hours.
At the present time, patients having a strong appetite for carbohydrate were not treated before appearance of obesity. At that stage, the use of compositions of large amounts of bulky substances or appetite-suppressant drugs have been utilized. The suppression of appetite was seen to result from a propensity to eat slower, to wait longer between meals, or to stop eating sooner. Such drugs show no selectivity on the kind of feeding and have unwanted side effects such as induction of hyperactivity.
A preferred method of treatment would involve the correction of the very nature of the feeding habits of some patients having an immoderate appetite for certain kinds of carbohydrate-containing food, particularly between meals. Such a state does not always entail obesity, but can indicate some metabolic disturbances or some neurotic troubles due to anxiety of becoming overweight.
Prior to the present invention, it has been known to administer dextro, levo-fenfluramine or fluoxetine to an animal (rat) in order to selectively reduce consumption of carbohydrates while not significantly reducing consumption of protein. These results are shown by Wurtman et al, Science, vol. 198, pp. 1178-1180, December, 1977; Current Medical Research and Opinion, vol. 6, Suppl. 1, pp. 28-33, 1979 and Life Sciences, vol. 24, pp. 894-904, 1979.
The d-isomer of fenfluramine and the salts thereof are known products which have been disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,198,834. In the same patent, the d-isomers at doses from about 5 mg to 50 mg per kg, have been generically disclosed as having an anorectic and a lipolytic activity in rates approximately three times greater than that of the corresponding l-isomer. The corresponding racemic mixture has an intermediate activity.